


Gifting Back

by ValmureEld



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gift Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Other, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 22:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17232095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValmureEld/pseuds/ValmureEld
Summary: Max tried to just ditch after the events of fury road, but after tapping out his already drained veins, he didn't get very far.





	Gifting Back

**Author's Note:**

> Another Christmas gift I'm posting late.

_It’s him. It’s the mad one. The one from Fury Road. He killed Joe? He killed Joe!_

_No you fool, he only helped._

_Does it matter?_

_Does he matter?_

_He mattered to her. To them. Heard he tapped his own veins out, poured himself into Furiosa._

_Nobody gives away like that. He must be crazy, or else you are._

_I ain’t crazy, and he did._

“Look!”

The wretched all leaned over Max, prodding almost harshly at the purpling bruise left over on the inside of his arm where he’d shoved the needle with as much haste as he could. He was vaguely aware of the figures bending over him, of the voices in his head mixing with the voices above him.

It didn’t matter, it all sounded like moth whispers and he was so tired. His head lolled to the side, his eyes slipped closed, and a great, weary sigh left his body.

“Oh no, did he just die?”

The shrug offloaded dust and sand from crooked shoulders. “Check.”

The younger wretched, already crouched low over Max with a kind of awed curiosity, settled on her knees and crouched lower, resting her head on his dusty chest. Inside, she could hear the fluttering beat of his heart still trying to sustain him with too much sand and too little blood sticking in his veins.

“Not dead, not quite alive either.” She picked her head up, looking around at the others. “What should we do? He killed Joe.”

“He didn’t.”

“Ok well he brought Furiosa back and she’s been looking for him, hasn’t she?”

Another dusty shrug. “If there’s a reward.”

The girl snorted and motioned, and between the four of them they lifted Max. One cradled his head, and dried blood flaked between her fingers from his hair.

“Furiosa, they’ve found Max!!”

Furiosa spun around from the conversation she’d been having in one of the green rooms, her eyes wide. Cheedo was standing at the far end, her chest heaving. She’s clearly run, and Furiosa couldn’t read if her expression meant good news or not.

It didn’t matter. Furiosa was already moving, ignoring the pain in her side that had only recently let her get up and begin overseeing the Citadel’s changes.

“Where?”

“He was barely alive,” Capable said, her hand carding gently through Max’s hair.

He was laying on one of their repurposed beds in the new medical wing. The stench of blood and death and vomit had quickly driven Furiosa to close down the Organic Mechanic’s old rooms until they could be scrubbed properly, and even then she never intended to use them for medical purposes ever again. The new wing had been one of Joe’s private halls where he’d kept war trophies, and after soundly burning or melting down all of them, they’d moved beds in and turned the place into a hospital of a kind. It was easier to temperature regulate, well lit, and closer to their water sources, so it was an ideal spot compared with the festering caves the Organic Mechanic had operated out of.

Furiosa looked down at him with a lump in her throat, taking in his windburned lips, the grime on his skin and the sweat that made his fluttering pulse all too apparent. He was no longer dressed in his rugged jacket, and leaving him in the thin shirt and his trousers, without his brace, without his weapons, made him look even more vulnerable. His sleeve was rolled up and the only patch of clean skin on him was at his elbow, where a new needle punctured the vein. This time though, the blood was pouring into him instead of away, and Furiosa glanced over at the donor. Toast was sitting next to him, looking solemn, her lips pressed together but not a complaint touching them as she held the other needle steady in her own arm.

“She’s a universal,” Capable whispered, nodding at Toast. “She had me test her and then offered the moment we realized he’d die without it.” She looked down at Max’s free forearm, brushing her fingers sadly across veins standing out blue and sickly under his flesh. “He was tapped so dry.”

Furiosa forced herself to take a breath and sit quietly on the edge of the bed, just watching Max’s slack face. He was completely out, his breathing heavy and tired, like he just wanted to stop.

But he didn’t. He kept on breathing, and gradually, Furiosa could actually see his color get better beneath the sand as Toast’s blood filled his heart and allowed it to beat once more just a little stronger.

“How much can she give?” Furiosa asked quietly, gently taking Max’s hand and holding it, just wanting him to feel what she’d felt while he’d held her, poured the blood that had saved her from his own body into her veins. She knew she was walking around, breathing, recovering because he’d given so much of his own life up.

“I’ll have to stop her soon,” Capable admitted, and Toast’s head snapped up, fixing her sister with a sharp glare.

“I’m sorry, but you’re not as big as he is. You can’t afford to lose as much,” Capable reasoned. Toast’s lips pressed together and she just tightened her hold on the needle, looking away.

“Will he make it?”

“I think he will now, yes. See how much better his color is? And his breathing isn’t so harsh,” she said gently, moving around Max to touch Toast’s hand. The other girl finally did look, taking in Max’s battered body.

“He looks like his car, all rusted and beat up,” she said.

“Yes, well he looked like that to start with didn’t he?” They glanced up to see the Dag coming in with a load of fresh food on her hip in a basket. “Figured he’d want something green to eat when he wakes up, provided he doesn’t puke it all back up.”

There was a flicker of amusement across both Furiosa and Capable’s faces at the car comment. “She isn’t wrong,” Capable admitted, looking down at Max again. “He’s a bit rusty, but that’s no matter when the engine’s good,” she said, patting his chest gently.

A few minutes more, and they pulled the line from Toast’s arm, holding up the tubing to let gravity drain as many precious extra drops into Max’s body as it would before they finally took the needle out and bandaged him up.

It took four days for him to wake, and when he did, The Dag was sitting at his side, wearing welding goggles and flipping through an old seed log from the Vuvalini. The first sound he made was a low, growling grunt kind of thing in the back of his throat that sounded like a rusty purr.

She started and looked over at him, her eyes wide as she bent closer. “You’re awake!” she exclaimed, immediately scrambling for water and helping to brace his head so he could sip at it. His chapped lips bled with even just that gentle touch, but he drank down the water greedily enough he ended up on his side coughing. She pulled the water away and steadied his shoulder, scolding him lightly.

“Hey, only been awake for a few heartbeats and already you’re trying to drown yourself. Slow down!”

He finished coughing and hummed, flopping back with a groan as he wiped at his bloodied lips with the back of his hand. For a moment he just lay there breathing, then he cracked his eyes open and glanced over at his guardian.

“Where?” he croaked, and she looked back at him from flagging down a war boy to fetch the others.

“The Citadel,” she answered, bending over him and touching the side of his face lightly. He turned his head away with a jerk, but it was more instinctive and he didn’t flinch again when she very gently touched a healing cut at his temple. “You really are a fool, you drained all your blood away to Furiosa and then you tried to walk off.”

“The Wretched found you,” Furiosa added, running up to them both with a look of pure relief on her face.

Nobody had looked at him like that, not in thousands of days, and he had to turn his head away and blink a few times to handle it. When he looked back again, the look in her eyes said she seemed to understand.

“Why did you try to leave, Fool?” Furiosa asked gently, watching as he stiffly tested his muscles and managed to sit up.

“Mmm, wasn’t that bad,” he muttered, shifting his back against the headboard with a grimace before glancing down at his elbows. Both had faded bruising from the blood transfusions, and for a moment Furiosa saw a spark of panic as he sought his memory for the one he didn’t recall having.

“That one was us giving you blood back,” she said gently, touching the arm he was staring at like it was foreign. He jerked his head up and looked at her, then over at Toast, who was covering her own arm in the same place. His cracked lips pursed together and they could see the gears in his mind turning.

“You?” he asked, looking at Toast.

She nodded. “Universal. And you needed some of it back.”

He swallowed once. “Thank you.”

“You saved Furiosa,” Cheedo said, weaving her way around Toast to get to his free side. Max was surrounded by the wives, and his eyes glanced around across them for only a flicker of a moment before his shoulders relaxed and he decided this kind of surrounded was ok. “You don’t have to thank us for anything.” She held out a tomato, and Max stared at it, reaching out to touch it with uncertain fingers. It was so red and bright and new looking that for a moment he couldn’t quite believe it was real.

The juice when he bit in was so overwhelming it gushed into the beard that had started to grow and he made a sound, ducking his head and jerking his hand up to try and save it. Cheedo laughed and Max looked up in surprise, accepting a cloth from her to use as a napkin. He was stuck on that look of pure amusement for a long, long confused moment before his own eyes crinkled and he swallowed, something like a laugh managing its way out of him to join her.


End file.
